Discovery Channel already has a documentary about the airliner that ditched in the Hudson River earlier this year. I guess it was OK to do a doc about that so soon since no one died. If it was a tragedy, it would be tasteless to do one so soon. They covered how perfectly the pilot ditched the plane and how there really was very little margin of error in terms of angle and speed to keep the plane from breaking up, which would likely have led to fatalities.
It seems the experience changed many of the survivors' lives. Those interviewed spoke of how their perspective on life had completely changed – of all the things they wanted to do and how they couldn't waste their precious lives on unimportant things. They all thought they were going to die. When a plane goes down, people die – that's something we learn from plane crash after plane crash. Sometimes people survive, but when you're on a plane that is definitely about to go down, it doesn't cross the mind with any confidence that you'll somehow be one of the lucky ones.
Of course, I don't know, but I like to think that I've kept an even keel enough perspective on life and death that I wouldn't undergo a transformative perspective shift. I wonder if how they felt on that plane was anything like that dream I had when I was trapped in a cage and a killer was walking towards me to kill me in cold blood. That feeling that "this is it, my life is about to end". It was mind-alteringly surreal, it was a serious adrenaline rush, but waking up from that feeling, I didn't feel like I wanted to live and had so many things I wanted to do. No, I more woke up thinking, "That bastard! He was really going to kill me! Bastard!" I wonder if my dream was in any way a sufficient simulation of what they felt in reality. Probably not.
I'm awake at 6 in the morning because I was thinking of riding out to Yeliu on Taiwan's east coast, maybe an hour and a half ride. I was debating it all night, then slowly prepared to go. Then I was all set to go, dressed up, geared up, moved my bike into position to leave, then I abandoned. Part of it was a physical realization that I haven't been able to complete even a 30 mile ride recently. What made me think I could make it out to Yeliu? But I wonder if part of it wasn't mental. Unmotivated. Bogged down. Depressed?
These negative aspects cascade down on me, even though I try not to get swallowed in the emotions of negativity. Suicide fucks things up for people. It FUCKS with people. And I'm going to fuck with people. I've been thinking the best shift at work for me to not show up to is a Saturday night part-time shift, because Saturday night is easy and can actually be done by one full-time person. That's good and all, but there's no mitigating the fuck of my suicide. The worst days for me to not show up for work is when I'm the full-time person on Sundays to Wednesdays. And I probably wouldn't do that. But next bad is if I don't show up for part-time shifts on those days, because the full-time person does rely on the second person on those days. But what the fuck, suicide inevitably fucks things up for people. I'm coming to terms with the fact that people are going to be fucked. But people get by. The newspaper will go out the next day, not that I care about anything except the extra burden that gets placed on the people I like. But they'll get by. People die, people get by. We got by after Ritu.
And it's just time for me.
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| SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7 - Neighborhood shooting. Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN. |
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| The Living Mall. The not-so-oft photographed non-sphere side. |
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| SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 4:59 p.m. - Construction across the street from work, Datong District. |
